us-005578-irn45712-irn11594
type: RecordSet
physical characterisitics and technical requirements: Aquarelle painting in watercolor wash with pencil on paper depicting, in muted grays and yellows, a section of a ghetto bordered by a long road and a high barbed wire fence. On the left a man in a dark gray hat and coat walks along a paved path in front of a house with a gabled roof and fenced yard. Behind him on the right, a woman in gray stands looking through the fence next to a gate. There is a very faint outline of a group of figures walking in the space between the fenced yard and the barbed wire fence. On the opposite side of the street is a larger, multi-storied building with a red peaked roof and several faintly outlined smaller buildings and trees. At the end of the long road is a guard tower. The sky is gray with black streaks across the top. It is signed and dated by the artist, in English and Hebrew. See 1996.3.4 for a pencil sketch of this scene. front, bottom left, pencil : Esther Lurie Kovno Ghetto 1941/1957 front, bottom right, pencil : Hebrew text [transliteration: Ester Lurie Geto Kovno 1941 Akvarel meshuhzar lo gamur 1957 [Esther Lurie Ghetto Kovno Reconstructed aquarelle. Not finished.]
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
has beginning date: 1957-01-01
has beginning date: 1941-01-01
has end date: 1941-12-31
has end date: 1957-12-31
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: eng
has or had some members with language: heb
has record set type: Item
history: The watercolor was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1996 by Esther Lurie.
history: Esther Lurie (1913-1998) was born in Liepaja (formerly Libau), Latvia, to a religious, intellectual Jewish family. Her parents were Josef and Bluma and she had five older sisters and an older brother. The family was forced to move to Riga during World War I (1914-1918), when Liepāja, a Baltic seaport which was then part of the Russian Empire, was taken over as a military port. Esther’s artistic gifts were nurtured from an early age. From 1931 -1934, she studied theatrical set design at the Instituts des Arts Decoratifs in Brussels, Belgium; in early 1934, she went to Antwerp, Belgium, to study drawing and painting at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. Most of her family emigrated to Palestine in 1934 and Esther joined them there. She worked with the Hebrew Theater, producing set decorations, and by 1938, had her first one women art show, winning the Dizengoff Prize. In 1939, Esther went on a study-exhibition tour throughout Europe. She was visiting her sister, Muta, in Kovno (Kaunus), Lithuania, when World War II broke out and she was trapped in the area. In 1940, the Soviet Army invaded and occupied Lithuania and the persecution of Jews became widespread. In June-July 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and soon occupied Lithuania. Almost immediately, German Einsatzgruppe (mobile killing units) and their Lithuanian auxiliaries began systematic massacres of Jews throughout the country. By November 1941, the surviving Jews of Kovno were imprisoned in a sealed ghetto surrounded by barbed wire. It was extreme overcrowded and there weresevere food shortages and frequent outbreaks of disease. Esther immediately began to record her experiences with sketches and written testimony on whatever little scraps of paper she could find. This was not easy and it could be dangerous – they were always under observation from guards. But other ghetto residents who saw her drawings thought it was important that someone should show ‘how it was’ and make a permanent record of their …
identifier: irn11594
is or was included in: us-005578-irn45712
record resource extent: overall: Height: 10.000 inches (25.4 cm) | Width: 15.875 inches (40.323 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: Watercolor of Kovno Ghetto created by Esther Lurie in 1957, reconstructing a drawing she did in 1941 while she was imprisoned in the ghetto in German occupied Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania. It depicts a barbed wire fence along a long road, where a man and woman stand talking near a gate. Lurie's drawings and sketches, created from 1941-1944, while a prisoner in Kovno ghetto and Stutthof and Leibisch concentration camps, exhibited and published in 1945, presented eloquent visual and written testimony of daily life during the Holocaust. Esther, a professional artist, originally from Liepaja, Latvia, settled in Palestine in 1934. She was visiting her sister in Kovno in summer 1941 when it was occupied by Germany. She was confined to the ghetto and had to create portraits and paintings for the Germans. She also, at the request of the Jewish Council, dedicated herself to recording the daily life of the residents. In July 1944, the ghetto was liquidated. Esther was sent to Stutthof concentration camp, where she continued to draw. Her family members were sent to Auschwitz and murdered. In August 1944, Esther was deported to Leibisch, and liberated by the Soviet Army on January 21, 1945. During the journey back to Palestine, she lived in a displaced persons camp in Italy, where an exhibition of her drawings of Leibisch was held.
title: Esther Lurie watercolor of the barbed wire fence, Kovno Ghetto